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Authentication Mechanisms

Overview

In this guide, you can learn how to authenticate with MongoDB using each authentication mechanism available in the MongoDB Community Edition. Authentication mechanisms are processes by which the driver and MongoDB deployment confirm identity and establish trust to ensure security.

The mechanisms that you can use with the latest version of MongoDB Community Edition are as follows:

Default
SCRAM-SHA-256
SCRAM-SHA-1
MONGODB-CR
MONGODB-AWS
X.509

To authenticate using Kerberos or LDAP, see the Enterprise Authentication Mechanisms guide. For more information about establishing a connection to your MongoDB cluster, see the Connect to MongoDB guide.

Specify an Authentication Mechanism

You can specify your authentication mechanism and credentials when connecting to MongoDB using either of the following:

A connection string
A MongoCredential factory method

A connection string (also known as a connection uri) specifies how to connect and authenticate to your MongoDB cluster.

To authenticate using a connection string, include your settings in your connection string and pass it to the MongoClients.create() method to instantiate your MongoClient. Select the Connection String tab to see the syntax for authenticating using a connection string.

Alternatively, you can use the MongoCredential class to specify your authentication details. The MongoCredential class contains static factory methods that construct instances containing your authentication mechanism and credentials. When you use the MongoCredential helper class, you need to use the MongoClientSettings.Builder class to configure your connection settings when constructing your MongoClient. Select the MongoCredential tab to see the syntax for authenticating using a MongoCredential.

For more information about these classes and methods, see the following API documentation:

Mechanisms

Default

The default authentication mechanism setting uses one of the following authentication mechanisms depending on what your version of MongoDB Server supports:

SCRAM-SHA-256
SCRAM-SHA-1
MONGODB-CR

Server versions 3.6 and earlier use MONGODB-CR as the default mechanism. Newer versions of MongoDB Server use one of the mechanisms for which they advertise support.

The following code snippets show how to specify the authentication mechanism, using the following placeholders:

username: your MongoDB username
password: your MongoDB user's password
hostname: network address of your MongoDB deployment that your client can access
port: port number of your MongoDB deployment
authenticationDb: MongoDB database that contains your user's authentication data

Note

If you omit the authenticationDb parameter, the driver uses the default admin database.

Select the Connection String or the MongoCredential tab below for instructions and sample code for specifying this authentication mechanism:

To specify the default authentication mechanism using a connection string, omit the mechanism. The code to instantiate a MongoClient resembles the following:

MongoClient mongoClient = MongoClients.create("mongodb://<db_username>:<db_password>@<hostname>:<port>/?authSource=<authenticationDb>");

To specify the default authentication mechanism using the MongoCredential class, use the createCredential() method. The code to instantiate a MongoClient resembles the following:

MongoCredential credential = MongoCredential.createCredential("<db_username>", "<authenticationDb>", "<db_password>");
MongoClient mongoClient = MongoClients.create(
    MongoClientSettings.builder()
        .applyToClusterSettings(builder ->
                builder.hosts(Arrays.asList(new ServerAddress("<hostname>", <port>))))
        .credential(credential)
        .build());

For more information about the challenge-response (CR) and salted challenge-response authentication mechanisms (SCRAM) that MongoDB supports, see the SCRAM section of the MongoDB Server manual.

`SCRAM-SHA-256`

Note

SCRAM-SHA-256 is the default authentication method for MongoDB starting in MongoDB 4.0.

SCRAM-SHA-256 is a salted challenge-response authentication mechanism (SCRAM) that uses your username and password, encrypted with the SHA-256 algorithm, to authenticate your user.

The following code snippets show how to specify the authentication mechanism, using the following placeholders:

username: your MongoDB username
password: your MongoDB user's password
hostname: network address of your MongoDB deployment that your client can access
port: port number of your MongoDB deployment
authenticationDb: MongoDB database that contains your user's authentication data

Note

If you omit the authenticationDb parameter, the driver uses the default admin database.

Select the Connection String or the MongoCredential tab below for instructions and sample code for specifying this authentication mechanism:

To specify the SCRAM-SHA-256 authentication mechanism using a connection string, assign the authMechanism parameter the value SCRAM-SHA-256 in your connection string. The code to instantiate a MongoClient resembles the following:

MongoClient mongoClient = MongoClients.create("mongodb://<db_username>:<db_password>@<hostname>:<port>/?authSource=<authenticationDb>&authMechanism=SCRAM-SHA-256");

To specify the default authentication mechanism using the MongoCredential class, use the createScramSha256Credential() method. The code to instantiate a MongoClient resembles the following:

MongoCredential credential = MongoCredential.createScramSha256Credential("<db_username>", "<authenticationDb>", "<db_password>");
MongoClient mongoClient = MongoClients.create(
    MongoClientSettings.builder()
        .applyToClusterSettings(builder ->
                builder.hosts(Arrays.asList(new ServerAddress("<hostname>", <port>))))
        .credential(credential)
        .build());

`SCRAM-SHA-1`

Note

SCRAM-SHA-1 is the default authentication method for MongoDB versions 3.0, 3.2, 3.4, and 3.6.

SCRAM-SHA-1 is a salted challenge-response mechanism (SCRAM) that uses your username and password, encrypted with the SHA-1 algorithm, to authenticate your user.

The following code snippets show how to specify the authentication mechanism, using the following placeholders:

username: your MongoDB username
password: your MongoDB user's password
hostname: network address of your MongoDB deployment that your client can access
port: port number of your MongoDB deployment
authenticationDb: MongoDB database that contains your user's authentication data

Note

If you omit the authenticationDb parameter, the driver uses the default admin database.

Select the Connection String or the MongoCredential tab below for instructions and sample code for specifying this authentication mechanism:

To specify the SCRAM-SHA-1 authentication mechanism using a connection string, assign the authMechanism parameter the value SCRAM-SHA-1 in your connection string. The code to instantiate a MongoClient resembles the following:

MongoClient mongoClient = MongoClients.create("mongodb://<db_username>:<db_password>@<hostname>:<port>/?authSource=<authenticationDb>&authMechanism=SCRAM-SHA-1");

To specify the default authentication mechanism using the MongoCredential class, use the createScramSha1Credential() method. The code to instantiate a MongoClient resembles the following:

MongoCredential credential = MongoCredential.createScramSha1Credential("<db_username>", "<authenticationDb>", "<db_password>");
MongoClient mongoClient = MongoClients.create(
    MongoClientSettings.builder()
        .applyToClusterSettings(builder ->
                builder.hosts(Arrays.asList(new ServerAddress("<hostname>", <port>))))
        .credential(credential)
        .build());

`MONGODB-CR`

MONGODB-CR is a challenge-response authentication mechanism that uses your username and password to authenticate your user. This authentication mechanism was deprecated starting in MongoDB 3.6 and is no longer supported as of MongoDB 4.0.

You cannot specify this method explicitly; refer to the fallback provided by the default authentication mechanism to connect using MONGODB-CR.

`MONGODB-AWS`

Note

The MONGODB-AWS authentication mechanism is available for MongoDB deployments on MongoDB Atlas.

The MONGODB-AWS authentication mechanism uses your Amazon Web Services Identity and Access Management (AWS IAM) credentials to authenticate your user. To learn more about configuring MongoDB Atlas, see the Set Up Passwordless Authentication with AWS IAM Roles guide.

To instruct the driver to use this authentication mechanism, you can specify MONGODB-AWS either as a parameter in the connection string or by using the MongoCredential.createAwsCredential() factory method.

Learn how to specify this authentication mechanism and the various ways to provide your AWS IAM credentials in the next sections.

These sections contain code examples that use the following placeholders:

awsKeyId: value of your AWS access key ID
awsSecretKey: value of your AWS secret access key
atlasUri: network address of your MongoDB Atlas deployment
hostname: hostname of your MongoDB Atlas deployment
port: port of your MongoDB Atlas deployment
awsSessionToken: value of your AWS session token

AWS SDK for Java

New in version v4.8.

You can use one of the AWS SDK for Java v1 or v2 to specify your credentials. This method offers the following features:

Multiple options for obtaining credentials
Credential caching which helps your application avoid rate limiting
Credential provider management for use with the Elastic Kubernetes Service.

To use the AWS SDK for Java for MONGODB-AWS authentication, you must perform the following:

Specify the authentication mechanism
Add the SDK as a dependency to your project
Supply your credentials using one of the methods in the credential provider chain

Important

This method of providing MONGODB-AWS credentials is available only in the MongoDB Java Driver v4.8 and later.

To specify the authentication mechanism by using a MongoCredential, use the MongoCredential.createAwsCredential() factory method and add the MongoCredential instance to your MongoClient as shown in the following example:

MongoCredential credential = MongoCredential.createAwsCredential(null, null);
// Creates a MongoClient that receives configuration information from a MongoCredential and environment variables
MongoClient mongoClient = MongoClients.create(
        MongoClientSettings.builder()
        .applyToClusterSettings(builder ->
        builder.hosts(Arrays.asList(new ServerAddress("<hostname>"))))
        .credential(credential)
        .build());

To specify the authentication mechanism in the connection string, add it as a parameter as shown in the following example:

MongoClient mongoClient = MongoClients.create("mongodb://<atlasUri>?authMechanism=MONGODB-AWS");

To add the AWS SDK as a dependency to your project, see the following AWS documentation for the version you need:

For the AWS SDK for Java v2, see the Setting Up guide.
For the AWS SDK for Java v1, see the Getting Started guide.

Note

For the AWS SDK for Java v2, the Java driver currently tests using the software.amazon.awssdk:auth:2.18.9 dependency.

For the AWS SDK for Java v1, the Java driver currently tests using the com.amazonaws:aws-java-sdk-core:1.12.337 dependency.

To supply your credentials, see the following AWS documentation for the version you need:

To learn more about the AWS SDK for Java v2 class the driver uses to get the credentials, see the DefaultCredentialsProvider API documentation.
Learn how to supply your credentials to this class from the Use the default credential provider chain section.
To learn more about the AWS SDK for Java v1 class the driver uses to get the credentials, see the DefaultAWSCredentialsProviderChain API documentation.
Learn how to supply your credentials to this class from the Using the Default Credential Provider Chain section.

Note

If you include both v1 and v2 of the AWS SDK for Java in your project, you must use the v2 methods to supply your credentials.

Specify Your Credentials in the Environment

You can provide your AWS IAM credentials by instructing the driver to use the MONGODB-AWS authentication mechanism and by setting the appropriate environment variables.

To use the environment variables to supply your credentials, you must perform the following:

Specify the authentication mechanism
Add the appropriate environment variables

You can specify the authentication mechanism by using a MongoCredential or on the connection string.

MongoCredential credential = MongoCredential.createAwsCredential(null, null);
// Creates a MongoClient that receives configuration information from a MongoCredential and environment variables
MongoClient mongoClient = MongoClients.create(
        MongoClientSettings.builder()
        .applyToClusterSettings(builder ->
        builder.hosts(Arrays.asList(new ServerAddress("<hostname>"))))
        .credential(credential)
        .build());

To specify the authentication mechanism in the connection string, add it as a parameter as shown in the following example:

MongoClient mongoClient = MongoClients.create("mongodb://<atlasUri>?authMechanism=MONGODB-AWS");

The next examples show how to provide your credentials by setting environment variables for the following types of authentication:

Programmatic access keys
Web identity provider
ECS container credentials
EC2 container credentials

The following example shows how you can set your programmatic access keys in environment variables by using bash or a similar shell:

export AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=<awsKeyId>
export AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=<awsSecretKey>
export AWS_SESSION_TOKEN=<awsSessionToken>

Omit the line containing AWS_SESSION_TOKEN if you don't need an AWS session token for that role.

You can use an OpenID Connect (OIDC)-compatible web identity provider to authenticate to Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) or other services.

Important

Your project must include v1 or v2 of the AWS SDK as a dependency to authenticate using a web identity provider.

To use a web identity provider, create a file that contains your OIDC token. Next, use bash or a similar shell to set an environment variable to the absolute path to this file, as shown in the following example:

export AWS_WEB_IDENTITY_TOKEN_FILE=<absolute path to file containing your OIDC token>

To authenticate by using ECS container credentials, set the ECS endpoint relative URI in an environment variable by using bash or a similar shell as shown in the following example:

export AWS_CONTAINER_CREDENTIALS_RELATIVE_URI=<your ECS endpoint>

To authenticate by using EC2 container credentials, make sure none of the environment variables mentioned in this section are set. The driver obtains the credentials from the default IPv4 EC2 instance metadata endpoint instead of from environment variables.

Specify Your Credentials in a MongoCredential

You can supply your AWS IAM credentials to a MongoClient by using a MongoCredential instance. To construct the MongoCredential instance for MONGODB-AWS authentication, use the createAwsCredential() factory method.

You can supply only programmatic access keys to the MongoCredential.createAwsCredential() method. If you must supply ECS or EC2 container credentials, use the instructions in Specify Your Credentials in the Environment or AWS SDK for Java.

To use the MongoCredential for MONGODB-AWS authentication, you must perform the following:

Specify the authentication mechanism
Supply the credentials

MongoCredential credential = MongoCredential.createAwsCredential("<awsKeyId>", "<awsSecretKey>".toCharArray());
// Creates a MongoClient that receives AWS credentials from the MongoCredential instance
MongoClient mongoClient = MongoClients.create(
        MongoClientSettings.builder()
        .applyToClusterSettings(builder ->
        builder.hosts(Arrays.asList(new ServerAddress("<hostname>"))))
        .credential(credential)
        .build());

If you must specify an AWS session token, pass it to the withMechanismProperty() method as shown in the following example:

MongoCredential credential = MongoCredential.createAwsCredential("<awsKeyId>", "<awsSecretKey>".toCharArray()).withMechanismProperty("AWS_SESSION_TOKEN",  "<awsSessionToken>");
 // Creates a MongoClient that receives configuration information from a MongoCredential instance
MongoClient mongoClient = MongoClients.create(
        MongoClientSettings.builder()
        .applyToClusterSettings(builder ->
        builder.hosts(Arrays.asList(new ServerAddress("<hostname>"))))
        .credential(credential)
        .build());

To refresh your credentials, you can declare a Supplier lambda expression that returns new credentials as shown in the following example:

Supplier<AwsCredential> awsFreshCredentialSupplier = () -> {
    // Add your code to fetch new credentials
    return new AwsCredential("<awsKeyId>", "<awsSecretKey>", "<awsSessionToken>");
};
// Creates a MongoCredential instance to specify the new AWS credentials
MongoCredential credential = MongoCredential.createAwsCredential(null, null)
        .withMechanismProperty(MongoCredential.AWS_CREDENTIAL_PROVIDER_KEY, awsFreshCredentialSupplier);
// Creates a MongoClient that receives new configuration information from a MongoCredential instance
MongoClient mongoClient = MongoClients.create(
        MongoClientSettings.builder()
        .applyToClusterSettings(builder ->
            builder.hosts(Collections.singletonList(new ServerAddress("<hostname>", <port>))))
        .credential(credential)
        .build());

Note

If you must provide AWS IAM credentials in a connection string, refer to a previous release of the MONGODB-AWS driver documentation.

`X.509`

The X.509 authentication mechanism uses TLS with X.509 certificates to authenticate your user, identified by the relative distinguished names (RDNs) of your client certificate. When you specify the X.509 authentication mechanism, the server authenticates the connection using the subject name of the client certificate.

The following code snippets show how to specify the authentication mechanism, using the following placeholders:

hostname: network address of your MongoDB deployment that your client can access
port: port number of your MongoDB deployment
authenticationDb: MongoDB database that contains your user's authentication data

Note

If you omit the authenticationDb parameter, the driver uses the default admin database.

Select the Connection String or the MongoCredential tab below for instructions and sample code for specifying this authentication mechanism:

To specify the X.509 authentication mechanism using a connection string, assign the authMechanism parameter the value MONGODB-X509 and enable TLS by assigning the tls parameter a true value. The code to instantiate a MongoClient resembles the following:

MongoClient mongoClient = MongoClients.create("mongodb://<hostname>:<port>/?authSource=<authenticationDb>&authMechanism=MONGODB-X509&tls=true");

To specify the X.509 authentication mechanism using the MongoCredential class, use the createMongoX509Credential() method. Also, enable TLS by calling the applyToSslSettings() method and setting the enabled property to true in the SslSettings.Builder block. The code to instantiate a MongoClient resembles the following:

MongoCredential credential = MongoCredential.createMongoX509Credential();
MongoClient mongoClient = MongoClients.create(
    MongoClientSettings.builder()
        .applyToClusterSettings(builder ->
            builder.hosts(Arrays.asList(new ServerAddress("<hostname>", <port>))))
        .applyToSslSettings(builder ->
            builder.enabled(true);
            )
        .credential(credential)
        .build());

To learn more about configuring your application to use certificates as well as TLS/SSL options, see the Enable TLS/SSL on a Connection guide.

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